Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,854
Ohio USA
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TSMC speeds up 7nm process production plan
If you have been listening to all recent signals like for example AMD's Computex announcements, 7nm chips are arriving much faster than originally anticipated.
TSMC has received growing customer demand in favor of 7nm node manufacturing for their chip products, said the sources, adding that more of its major fabless clients intend to skip 10nm process and go directly to 7nm one. HiSilicon, MediaTek, Xilinx and Nvidia have all disclosed their adoption of TSMC's 7nm process in their next-generation chip products.
AMD announced skipping 10nm for 7nm a long time ago. No doubt, others were thinking about it. But, the ball is rolling now. I wonder if Intel will keep on trying at 10nm -- its a year or more overdue.
Meantime, one should note, that 12nm, 10nm, 7nm are not absolute physical dimensions. Rather, they are partly physical dimensions and partly a way of describing roughly how effectively a particular chip works. To put it another way, all 7nm are not created equal size.
Nonetheless, once AMD and a couple others jumped to 7nm, it pushed many to jump -- because they have to compete. This is good for the customer.
